A big New York City nightclub is hosting a festival to raise funds for COVID-19 relief efforts – all in Minecraft. That’s right, Elsewhere club, which is (normally) based in Brooklyn, NYC, will open its virtual doors in Mojang’s block builder for an in-game event called ‘Nether Meant’ – and all proceeds from VIP pass sales will go to Good360’s relief efforts in response to the ongoing pandemic.
That’s according to an Instagram post by the club (via GamesRadar), which announces the “virtual music festival takes place in the sandbox game world of Minecraft” this weekend, on April 11 at 18:00 ET / 15:00 PT / 23:00 UK. The event will include performances from a bunch of real-life artists, such as bands Anamanaguchi and American Football, and electronic musician, Baths, to name just a few.
There “will even be a fully functioning American Football house on stage”, and all this takes place in a “digitally scaled replica” of the club, which in the sandbox game’s world is called ‘Elsewither’. Neat!
While the virtual Minecraft festival will be completely free to jump into for players, there will be VIP passes available for sale, which will give access to some special VIP areas in the recreated nightclub, as well as exclusive merchandise and entry to a VIP option in Discord, giving players the opportunity to speak to the in-game festival’s performing artists. 100% of the proceeds of these passes will go to Good360’s efforts.
If you’re keen to attend the event, you can information on how to add the Elsewither festival server in Minecraft on the nightclub’s website here. It’s worth noting that the event is only available to PC players, and you’ll need the Java edition of the game rather than the Bedrock version.
You can also check the event out on Twitch here when it goes live as it’ll be streamed in full there, and hop into the festival’s Discord here, too.